Non-Recording Agreement Form

Successful therapy depends on building a relationship of trust, good faith, and openness between client(s) and therapist(s). Often, audio or video recording can inhibit candor and introspection in therapy. Covert recording is a direct violation of trust and good faith to all the other persons in the room.

In addition, recordings made and taken home by clients sometimes fall into unintended hands through loss, random or targeted theft, or action by police, court or governmental agency. Such loss could compromise or nullify your legal expectation of confidentiality in the extremely sensitive personal or interpersonal matters that may have been discussed. Courts may not give your own recordings all the legal confidentiality they give to a therapist's office notes and may find them self serving. Client recordings can more easily end up becoming an issue in conflicts such as divorce, child custody, or other legal cases or be used by agencies of government. A client who makes a recording solely for personal use or to use against a partner may later be surprised to find the recording being used against him-or herself instead. And once an unfavorable recording exists, its deletion can become legally punishable if a subpoena is issued for it. Additionally, most users of recording technology lack the technological tools and knowledge required to delete a recording in a way that makes it unrecoverable and unbackable.

Factors like these undermine the therapeutic process and the building or rebuilding of trust that takes place between partners in session and between the client(s) and therapist(s).

For these reasons and others like them, Receptive Mind Services maintains a strict policy on recording.

The client signing below agrees that:

• Recording may only take place with the knowledge and explicit consent of ALL (not just one) clients, therapists, and other persons present during a session or other interaction, whether face-to-face or taking place by live textual, audio, or video link.
• Consent for each recording must take the form of dated written signatures from all persons on a paper form available for that purpose, with a copy to each person recorded. Additionally the recording itself must include the live consent of all persons present, with such consent stated at the start of the recording or when they join a session or interaction already in progress.

The clinician (whom is engaged in this video / Tele Health session) will only consent to recording of a session for exceptional reasons and only after the drawbacks and risks have been discussed and the benefit clearly outweighs them. Violation of this policy by covert recording or non-conformance with this agreement will lead to termination of therapy.